Monday, May 05, 2008

Age and Gender

Blog Readers: More on my blog in general in the comments section.Ms. Rejector,

I am a sixteen year old female author. I have one full length novel (unpublished), under my belt, as well as one half of another one. My question is, respectfully, do age and gender play a major part when a manuscript is being taken into consideration by a publisher? I know it ultimately boils down to the quality of the work as to whether or not it is picked up, but in those first stages of consideration, is my age working against me?

Gender does not work against you unless you are a male writing a story about lesbians. That is the once case where it works against you.

Age does. Don't mention your age if you are below 21 years old. It's not lying; it's just not something you should mention before they see your novel and love it.

First contact is (or maybe should be) all about the manuscript. I didn't mention my own age, occupation, personal appearance or nationality in my queries. I let that all that stuff wait until there was interest in the work itself.

Once you get to that first getting-to-know-you phone call, *that's* when personal details will naturally come up.

And by that time, the agent likes your work already, or they wouldn't be calling...